CASTOR (the Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and uv Research) is a proposed CSA-led mission that would carry out deep, high-resolution imaging at ultraviolet and blue-optical wavelengths. Operating close to the diffraction limit, the 1m CASTOR telescope would have a spatial resolution comparable to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), but with an instantaneous field of view of 1.2° x 0.6° -- about two hundred times larger than that of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on HST. Imaging would be carried out simultaneously in three non-overlapping bandpasses: UV (0.15-0.3 μm), u′ (0.3-0.4 μm) and g (0.4-0.55 μm). In the blue-optical region, CASTOR imaging would far exceed that from LSST in terms of depth and angular resolution, even after a decade of LSST operations. In this review, we summarize the various technical efforts being carried out in support of the CASTOR mission concept, and describe the potential scientific synergy between the CASTOR, Euclid and WFIRST missions.

Date Published: 24 July 2014
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 914403 (24 July 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2055247

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9144:
Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray
Tadayuki Takahashi; Jan-Willem A. den Herder; Mark Bautz, Editor(s)